Towering trio threaten Sri Lanka at Lord's

Towering trio threaten Sri Lanka at Lord's

England are poised to field the tallest ever pace trio in the second test against Sri Lanka at Lord's starting on Friday against a side who showed a woeful inability to deal with the short-pitched ball in Cardiff.

Steven Finn looks certain to join Chris Tremlett and Stuart Broad in a three-pronged attack calculated to be marginally taller on aggregate than West Indies speedsters Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Ian Bishop were in the 1990s.

Finn is next in line to take over from James Anderson who has been ruled out of the Lord's test because of a side strain which prevented him bowling in Sri Lanka's second innings in the first test.

'Finn looks less like a boy and more like a man'

In his absence England's three remaining specialist bowlers needed only 24.4 overs to dismiss Sri Lanka for 82 and record an astonishing innings victory in a match which seemed doomed to end in a draw.

Although Jade Dernbach was added to the squad on Tuesday as a direct replacement for Anderson, England team director Andy Flower indicated Finn would play on his Middlesex home ground after losing his Test spot in the Ashes series in Australia five months ago.

"Finn looks good to me," Flower told reporters.

"Physically he looks big and strong now, less like a boy and more like a man. He's got a very good chance of playing at Lord's."

Sri Lanka has possess a poor Test record outside the Indian sub-continent

Tremlett set up England's amazing victory in the first Test on Monday when he wrecked the Sri Lanka top-order batting after 160 overs had been lost to rain.

Given the new ball, he bowled with the relaxed menace and steepling bounce displayed by Steve Harmison at his brief peak to dismiss both openers cheaply as well as Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka's most technically accomplished batsman.

Sri Lanka's abject capitulation exposed the flaws in a team who have reached the last two 50-over World Cup finals but who possess a poor Test record outside the Indian sub-continent.

Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, both former captains and the team's two best batsmen, did not contribute in Cardiff after arriving late because of their Indian Premier League commitments.